C1 Reading Practice Test 3

In the steep, forested hills above the Black Sea coast, in the province of Giresun, there is a village whose name means "bird village". The name suits it for an unusual reason. For generations, its inhabitants have been able to hold conversations from one side of a valley to the other without raising their voices, because they do not speak at all. They whistle. The practice, known locally as "kuş dili", or bird language, grew out of necessity. In a landscape where hazelnut orchards cling to slopes and the nearest neighbour might be separated by a ravine, shouting is exhausting and travels poorly. Whistling, by contrast, carries remarkably well. A skilled whistler, using a finger in the mouth or cupped hands, can produce sounds that are intelligible at a distance of several kilometres, depending on the weather and the terrain. What distinguishes whistled Turkish from a simple signalling code is that it is genuinely linguistic. Rather than assigning arbitrary meanings to particular notes, whistlers reproduce the melody and rhythm of ordinary speech, translating the pitch contours of vowels and the interruptions caused by consonants into patterns of sound. A message such as "Come and eat" does not require a special vocabulary; it is simply Turkish, rendered in a different medium. Researchers who have studied similar traditions elsewhere, such as the whistled language of the Canary island of La Gomera, have found that experienced listeners process these sounds in the brain areas normally associated with speech rather than those used for music. Like many ancient traditions, however, kuş dili has been threatened by progress. The arrival of mobile phones made it easy to contact anyone, anywhere, so there was no longer a pressing need to master a skill that takes years of practice. Younger residents often left for the cities, and for a time it seemed likely that the last fluent whistlers would soon be silent. The tradition has since attracted international attention. In 2017, UNESCO recognised it as part of humanity's intangible cultural heritage, and local authorities introduced lessons for schoolchildren, as well as an annual festival. Whether these efforts will be enough to revive the language as an everyday means of communication remains uncertain; telephones, after all, are unlikely to disappear. Yet the achievement of the people of Kuşköy lies not only in the preservation of an old custom. It lies in the reminder that human language is more flexible than we usually assume, capable of travelling across a valley on nothing more than a breath.

Ask a group of students whether they would like to abolish homework, and the answer is unlikely to surprise anyone. Ask a group of teachers, however, and you will probably receive a more complicated response. The debate over homework, which has run for well over a century, shows no sign of reaching a conclusion, partly because both sides are defending something genuinely valuable. Supporters of homework argue that learning does not end when the bell rings. Mastering a language, a mathematical method or a scientific principle takes repetition, and the school day simply does not contain enough hours. Homework, they say, gives pupils the chance to practise independently, to discover what they do not yet understand and, perhaps most importantly, to develop habits of responsibility and time management that will serve them long after they leave school. A student who has learned to plan an essay across a week, they point out, has gained a skill no examination can fully measure. Opponents respond that the benefits are overstated and the costs underestimated. Research on the subject, they note, is inconclusive. Several reviews have found that homework appears to help older students more than younger children, and that beyond a certain amount, extra hours bring diminishing returns. Meanwhile, those hours come at a price. Sleep, exercise, music, friendships and unstructured play all contribute to a young person's development, and many students report that heavy workloads leave them anxious and exhausted. There is also the question of fairness. A student with a quiet room, a computer and helpful parents is in a far better position than one who shares a crowded flat or must look after younger siblings. Some education systems have responded creatively. Finland, whose pupils enjoy a reputation for achieving strong results with relatively little homework, is often cited, although it would be rash to assume that other countries could simply copy its approach, since so many other differences are involved. More modest changes are easier to introduce: limiting the amount of work to a sensible daily maximum, providing supervised study time at school, and ensuring that tasks are meaningful rather than merely repetitive. Perhaps the most useful question is not "How much homework?" but "What is it for?" Work that deepens understanding, gives students some choice and can reasonably be completed in the time available is likely to be welcomed by pupils and teachers alike. Work that exists chiefly because it always has will be difficult to defend for much longer.

Hakan arrived at the café in Lisbon eleven minutes early, which he later admitted was not the behaviour of a man who was indifferent to the occasion. It had been twelve years since he had last seen Jun-ho, the quiet Korean exchange student with whom he had shared a flat, a leaking kettle and a passion for terrible films. Letters had given way to emails, emails to messages and, eventually, messages to the occasional birthday greeting. Hakan had never decided to stop writing; it had simply happened, the way a tide leaves a harbour. He chose a table by the window and ordered a coffee he did not particularly want. At the agreed hour, the door remained closed. At five past, he was composing in his head the speech of the reasonable man ("Of course, no, it's fine, traffic is terrible"). At ten past, the speech had acquired an edge. What annoyed him was not the delay itself but the discovery that, after all these years, a man could still be so casually unreliable. Jun-ho appeared seven minutes after the hour, which in itself was hardly scandalous. He was out of breath, his hair was damp from the rain, and he was carrying a paper bag in both hands as one carries something that might break. "I am so sorry," he said, and then, in a tone that suggested he had rehearsed it on the tram, "I tried to be early." Hakan's carefully prepared irritation vanished so rapidly that he was almost embarrassed. They stood facing each other for a moment, two men uncertain whether to shake hands or embrace, before settling on an awkward compromise that involved both and satisfied neither. "I went back for this," Jun-ho explained, pushing the bag across the table. Inside, wrapped in newspaper, was a dented kettle, a replica, as it turned out, of the one in their old flat, found after weeks of searching in a second-hand shop. "Terrible kettle," he said. "But I thought we should drink tea from it." Hakan laughed, louder than the café probably approved of. Had anyone told him, an hour earlier, that he would be near tears over a piece of kitchenware, he would have dismissed the idea as absurd. They stayed until the waiters began to stack the chairs. Not once did either mention the years of silence. It seemed to them both unnecessary, in the way that explanations often are between people who need no introduction.